User:YoavShapira
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Current: Yoav maintains an active personal web site at YoavShapira.com. That site has links to Yoav's blog, his LinkedIn profile, and his resume. Yoav welcomes contact from past friends, colleagues, and friends thereof, by email to yoavs -at- computer -dot- org.
The rest of this page recounts Yoav's life in chronological order from earliest to latest.
Childhood: Yoav Shapira was born in Rehovot, Israel on September 5th, 1978. He is the first born son of Oz and Esther Shapira, and older brother of Noa and Ayelet. Oz is the Clinical Director of the Boston Medical Center's Cardiothoracic Surgery department, and an Associate Professor at the Boston University School of Medicine. Esther is currently a private teacher and tutor in various subjects.
Yoav was raised in the town of Rehovot until 1991, attending Ben-Gurion elementary school from kindergarten through 6th grade, and then Katzir (Aleph) High School for one year, his 7th grade. Yoav enjoyed elementary school quite a bit, although even at this early age he disliked slow teachers and became upset when received grades that were not up to his high standards.
Move to United States: In the summer of 1991, Yoav and his immediate family moved to Brookline, Massachusetts, in the United States. The family moved so that Yoav's father could pursue a fellowship in cardiothoracic surgery at the Boston Medical Center in Massachusetts. It was supposed to be a two-year trip, but at the end of the fellowship, Oz was offered an attending position at Boston Medical Center, in Boston, Massachusetts, and the family stayed.
Yoav had mixed emotions about the move at the time. On one hand, he had many close childhood friends in Israel, and was starting to develop romantic relationships with girls in the area. On the other hand, Yoav was a big fan of the Boston Celtics from a young age, and the move to America seemed exciting.
High School: Yoav attended the Devotion School in Brookline for one year, and then Brookline High School from 1992 to 1995. Yoav completed his high school studies in three years instead of the usual four, because the family expected to return to Israel in 1995. While in high school, Yoav competed on the basketball team, and was also involved with the Senior Steering Committee and National Honor Society.
During this year, Yoav's English language skills improved significantly, as expected in an immersive environment. To this day, Yoav credits his daily hours on the basketball courts of Brookline with the rapid pace of his improvment.
Boston University: In the fall of 1995, Yoav began his college education at Boston University, majoring in Computer Systems Engineering at the College of Engineering. The following year, Yoav was accepted into the College's four-year combined program leading to both Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Computer Systems Engineering. In May 1999, Yoav graduated from Boston University, Summa Cum Laude, with these two degrees. Yoav was the only student in his class to concurrently complete these two degrees at this level of academic achievement.
During his time at BU, Yoav played on the Ultimate team, as well as in the intramural basketball league.
Yoav was selected to the College of Engineering's Dean's List every semester, and was inducted into the Golden Key and Tau Beta Pi honor societies.
For his undergraduate senior project, Yoav led a team in the design of an autonomous maze-solving robot, to compete in the IEEE MicroMouse competition. The performance on this project helped secure Yoav's Summa Cum Laude honors.
For his master's thesis, Yoav completed research on the integration of IPv6 routers into existing IPv4 networks, and built a mixed IPv6/IPv4 software router, which he then installed in the university's Software Engineering Laboratory. The router succeeded in seamlessly mixing traffic, to the point where its installation went undetected by laboratory administration for several weeks. The thesis earned an A (highest) grade, and was completed under the supervision of Professor (Emeritus) John Brackett.
Also during his time at Boston University, Yoav became a member of both the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers (IEEE), and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). Yoav maintains these memberships to this day, and is grateful for the role these two organizations have played in his professional growth.
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu: Following his graduation from Boston University, Yoav began working (in July of 1999) as a Systems Analyst for Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. Yoav was based in the Boston office, and his most significant project with the firm was for a large public sector client.
During his time with Deloitte, Yoav met many fascinating and brilliant people, including (but not limited to): Jane Nguyen, Steve Kunin, Greg Phoenix, Christine Swoboda, Scott Bailey, Amit Banerji, and Paul Schaney. Yoav is still in touch with Jane on a regular basis, and with Steve sporadically.
As part of his work with Deloitte, Yoav completed Ariba training and became a certified Ariba consultant. However, this knowledge was never put to practical use, as immediately following the completion of training, Yoav was assigned to a project that did not use Ariba.
Yoav was unhappy with the [Big Four] consulting environment, and sought a position which would involve more engineering, design, and development. In November of 2000, Yoav left Deloitte for his next position.
Millennium Pharmaceuticals: In November 2000, following a job search that lasted less than a week, Yoav accepted a position as a consultant to Millennium Pharmaceuticals's ChemInformatics group. Yoav was interviewed by Rich Ferrante, Craig Tulig, and Nick Camp, all of whom became trusted colleagues and friends.
Yoav took to Millennium immediately, embracing the challenge of understanding the drug discovery process. The work was fascinating, the people great, and the pay excellent. Yoav stayed at Millennium through two restructuring efforts, for a total of more than four years.
During his time at Millennium, Yoav became actively involved with the open-source software development movement, primarily through his contributions to the Apache Software Foundation. Yoav is still a leading developer of the Tomcat and Log4j products, and contributes to numerous other projects within and outside Apache.
Throughout his time at Millennium, however, Yoav kept his eyes open for the right academic program that would enable him to take the next step into corporate management. During the summer of 2004, the director of the [System Design and Management Program at MIT contacted Yoav, bringing the program to his attention. After some research and conversations with colleagues and contacts, Yoav decided to pursue this opportunity.
In December 2004, Yoav left Millennium in order to attend this program. Yoav regards his time at Millennium as a great experience, significantly furthering his professional and personal development.
MIT: In January 2005, Yoav enrolled at MIT's System Design and Management (SDM) program. The program is designed for technologists who want to lead engineering, not leave it for a purely non-technical function. Yoav liked the program's short duration (13 months in its most intensive version, which he is pursuing) compared to alternatives such as the traditional 2-year MBA program.
The Future? At this point, Yoav has completed the first half of the program, and is looking forward to the final 6 months, which he is sure will fly by.
